Controlled facilities, such as a jail, prison, secure detention environments, detention facility, secured hospital, or addiction treatment facility, house large populations of individuals in confinement, which presents unique administrative challenges. In such detention environments, detained individuals, such as prisoners, offenders, convicts, military personnel, patients, government cleared personnel, or other detainees, frequently desire to communicate with individuals outside the detention environment such as friends or family members.
Detainee contact with the outside world is further desirous as such contact often can lead to improved detainee behavior and can also contribute to a lower recidivism rate, once detainees are released to the outside world.
However, controlled facility officials also have valid security concerns regarding detainee communications. The cost to address these concerns may sometimes at least partially be passed on to the detainee and the people that communicate with him. That being said, an equally-important component is a desire to provide fair-priced phone calls, without loopholes, to ensure delivery of secure communication systems yet not gouge the detainee and/or the ones to whom they communicate.
Current pricing mechanisms, in the field of telephone communications, call pricing is based on a number of different variables, singularly or in various combinations. One variable that may be utilized are pre-defined geographic calling zones which are divided into the categories shown in Table I, below. Generally speaking, local indicates a shortest distance call, intraLATA is of a longer length, then interLATA, etc.
TABLE IGeographicCalling ZoneCategoryDefinitionlocalCalls within a local calling area, usually defined by a list ofspecific calling prefixes or exchange codes (the first threenumbers that follow the area code.) Related, the area codeis sometimes referred to as the NPA of a telephone numberwhere NPA stands for Numbering Plan Area code.Similarly, NXX is sometimes used to refer to theaforementioned calling prefix or exchange code.)intraLATACalls within a geographic area or region, as pre-defined bythe FCC, in which a local operating telephone companytypically provides local service, long distance service, andaccess to an entire telephone network.interLATACalls between a geographic area or region.interstateGenerally, calls that cross over one or more state lines.internationalCalls between the USA and foreign locations.
Another pricing variable is distance, between a caller and the called party, and is sometimes referred to as ‘mileage bands’. Distance between two calling parties is typically tied to a distance between approximate geographic locations associated with the NPA-NXXs of the involved telephone numbers (the first three digits of the telephone number, also known as the area code, plus the next three numbers.)
Other pricing variables include payment methods such as collect and pre-paid calling card, day and time of day of a call, type of involved device for placing or receiving a call (cell phone, land line, VoIP, etc), length of call and a flat connection fee.
While these existing mechanisms have sufficed, and still do suffice in many respects, a need is becoming apparent for increased precision regarding a physical location, at which a person makes and receives phone calls, and the related distance between callers. In addition, application of newer communication technologies has made the existing mechanisms woefully lacking in many related aspects.
The foregoing examples of the related art and limitations related therewith are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Other limitations of the related art will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon a reading of the specification and a study of the drawings.